


And the Reflection Stares Right Back

by givemeunicorns



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Pack Feels, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:17:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think somewhere in you there is still a decent human being. I’ve seen glimpses of him. When the hunters shot Erica and you held her through her seizure, when had us stay outside Boyd’s family’s house all night because you knew he was scared for them, when you carried me back to the hale house after the hospital. Because there are still people who want to save you and I happen to be one of them. Me, Scott, Stiles, Cora, Jennifer. You’re important to us. Boyd died because he believed you were worth protecting. I don’t owe you anything, neither did he. But you’re my alpha, you’re part of my pack. And pack sticks together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Reflection Stares Right Back

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill from my tumblr(sitdowngreenburg.tumblr.com)
> 
> Anon asked:I really want Derek and Isaac to have a conversation after/during Visonary. Because if anyone knows what it's like to lose someone, it's Isaac.
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own Teen Wolf.

            He followed his nose, his eyes, his wolf. Isaac my have been torn as to who his alpha was now but his wolf knew it’s maker.

            He found him in the bones of the old distillery, tucked into the basement, looking teen years younger and a hundred years older all at once. He was careful and quite, trying to calm is heart. He still didn’t have much fondness for basements.

            He heard Derek shift, lift his head, catching the scent of his beta coming down the stairs. He growled and Isaac could see the sharp red of his eyes in the darkness. Without thinking, the youth dropped into a crouch, pulled his body into itself, whined. It irked the logical, human part of his brain, this instinct to cower in the face of his angry alpha. He was a born beta, Deaton had told him, graced with a wolf driven by the urge to follow, serve, and protect. An important part of the pack, because sometimes that meant defying the alpha to help the alpha, allowing his humanity to take the wheel, even when it came to werewolf politics. Like now, when his wolf was torn between obeying a silent order, and defying it in order to help. Because under the hot stench of rage, their was a host of other things. Pain, fear, grief, so strange Isaac could taste them on his tongue.

            Isaac took a deep breath, steeled himself, pushed his muscles to move, until he was on his feet, descending the stairs again. He was careful, his eyes on the older wolf. Derek was teetering, toeing a fine line between wolf and human and Isaac wasn’t sure which way he was more likely to tip.

            “Get out,” Derek snarled, exposing his fangs.

            Isaac swallowed. He’d always thought Derek was almost more intimidating when he was only half transformed. He slowed, hesitating, before his foot left the last step.

            “No,” he replied, hands in his pockets to hide their shaking, even though he knew Derek could smell the fear on him. He knew Derek could hurt him, knew he would hurt him. But he’d been hurt before, spent years surviving.  The fear was just a residual response, he reminded himself. Derek couldn’t hit him with anything he couldn’t handle.

            Derek was moving, dropping into a crouch, like a beast about to strike.

            “I said get out,” he roared and the sound echoed in the empty space. Isaac flinched, steps stilling. But he pulled a hard breath into his lungs, forced his eyes to open, even though he knew the bright gold would betray him.

            “Or you’ll what, Derek? Throw another glass at me?” he said, quiet, because that wound was still raw too, “because you seem to be all out of dishes at the moment.”

            That stopped Derek in his tracks, forcing him back into his corner in the darkness.

            “Please Isaac,” he’s alpha said, and he sounded dead tired, “Just go.”

            Isaac shook his head, taking a seat on the rickety stairs. It made him feel marginally better, being able to see the moon light, breath the free air, reminding him he wasn’t in Dad’s basement, that there was no freezer here.

            “So you can do what? Wallow in your own self-hatred? Sorry, but no.”

            Derek dropped his head into his hands and the silence stretched out between them for what seemed like hours.

            “You’re not half as horrible a human being as you think you are,” Isaac said at length.

            Derek gave a snort of cool laughter, choked and self deprecating.

            “My family is dead because I was stupid enough to fall for a hunter. My sister is dead because I didn’t have her back. Two of my beta’s are dead because I got in way over my head, because I drew the alpha’s here and I couldn’t protect my own. I killed Boyd. With my own two hands. I lost everyone in my life directly because of my own shitty choices. Please, explain to me how that makes me a less than terrible individual, Isaac because I would love to know,” Derek said and their was a raw edge to his voice, like a man ready to jump off a very high ledge.

            Isaac turned it over in his head, trying to find the words he wanted. Words had never been his strong suit.

            ““I used to think it was my fault,” he said after a moment, suddenly unable to look away from the tracery of veins on the back of his own hands,  “That mom left, that Camden died, that dad hit me. That I had done something to deserve it. That if I was stronger or faster or smarter, it would stop happening. People would stop leaving, people would stop dying. My dad would love me again.”

            He swallowed hard. He ‘d never said the words out loud, no matter how much Erica and Boyd, and later Scott and Allison, had tried to get him to.

            “ You knew I needed the bite, but for a long time I didn’t think you knew why. Because how could you, Derek Hale, understand what that was like? Living in fear? Then I started watching you and I realized you were just as scared as the rest of us. That you knew what it was like to be beaten, to be weak, to be alone. You were just better at pretending you weren’t.”

            Derek’s head dropped on to his folded arms, but he didn’t speak. Isaac scrubbed a hand across his arm. He was suddenly chilled, even through his sweater. His wolf wanted to comfort the aching alpha, wanted to curl up, warm and close. But the human part of him knew there was things that needed saying first, wounds that needed purging.

            “You know what it looks like, because you see it staring back at you in the mirror ever day. Guilt. It eats you, all the way to your bones. I thought I deserved everything I got, because my dad convinced me I did. Because, no matter how much I clung to the memory of a man who was good and honest and loved his family, my dad hadn’t been that guy in a long time.  Every word out of his mouth was like poison, and I drank it up. Just like you did with Kate, just like you’re doing with Peter. You hate him, you don’t trust him, but you refuse to let him go because you want to believe the uncle you loved is still in there somewhere. Something broke you, convinced you that didn’t deserve love. So you take what he gives you because it reminds you of a time when you weren’t damaged. ”

            Derek was looking at him now, eyes faded back to their steely grey blue. Isaac stood, closing the small space between them with careful, deliberate steps. Derek didn’t growl, didn’t snap, and so Isaac knelt, eye to eye with his alpha. It was a purposeful gesture, not one for alpha’s and beta’ but one between friends. Equals. People who knew each other.

“You’ve done some shitty things Derek, I won’t lie about that.  But I think your biggest problem is that the few people you’ve allowed yourself to trust won’t tell you how shitty those choices were. Maybe that’s why you’re so good a hitting people’s weak spots, at manipulation. They didn’t care, they used you, after you let yourself love them, and you can’t forget how that made you feel. You won’t let yourself trust new people, love new people, because you’re afraid they’ll hurt you too but you also don’t know how to cut out the bad ones. Being a wolf didn’t make me strong enough to walk out on my dad. “

The quiet stretched between them, long and empty, filled with a thousand words and experiences neither of them had the words to tell.

“I lost them too Derek, Erica and Boyd. I was there when their families put them in the ground. People I loved, more than I had loved anyone in a long time. I buried my family, twice. The world took the first one, the alpha’s took the second. I won’t put you in the ground too. So growl and snap and throw things, whatever. Keep on pretending to be this monster, you’ve let them convince you, you’ve convinced yourself, that you are. I’ve seen monsters, I can take it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Isaac braced himself for the rage, the anger, the retaliation. Anything but the confused, empty look on Derek’s face.

“Why? You don’t owe me a damn thing Isaac. Why put yourself through this?

Isaac shrugged.

“Because I think somewhere in you there is still a decent human being. I’ve seen glimpses of him. When the hunters shot Erica and you held her through her seizure, when had us stay outside Boyd’s family’s house all night because you knew he was scared for them, when you carried me back to the hale house after the hospital. Because there are still people who want to save you and I happen to be one of them. Me, Scott, Stiles, Cora, Jennifer. You’re important to us. Boyd died because he believed you were worth protecting. I don’t owe you anything, neither did he. But you’re my alpha, you’re part of my pack. And pack sticks together. That’s why we came that night. Don’t throw away what Boyd did, don’t make it for nothing. ”

            He offered a hand to Derek, standing.

            “We need you Derek. I know it easy it is to slip, to let it kill you. But you have to get up.”

            He heaved a heavy sigh and for a moment Isaac was sure it was a waste of breath, that he’d be walking up those stairs and out of this place alone. But then Derek was moving, slowly, like it pained him. Uncurling from his spot on the floor, he reached for Isaac’s hand, letting his beta pull him to his feet.


End file.
